Sunday, April 23, 2017

What Do I Know About Reviews? Expanded Worlds (Cypher System)

So, if I review something that just arrived from a Kickstarter
that I backed, that counts as lowering my RPG backlog, even if its brand new,
right? I mean, that's like part of the virtual backlog that exists in
superposition to my theoretical quantum gaming library, right?

What could I be babbling about
this time? I'm glad that theoretically someone asked, because I'm going to give
you the answer! I finished up my cover to cover read through of Expanded Worlds, a sourcebook for the Cypher System RPG, made some notes, and
now it’s time to beat those notes into a review of sorts.

How Does It Look?

A lot of my modern
gaming library is composed of PDFs these days, and even when I eventually get a
physical copy of a book, I often jump on reviews when I only have the PDF. In
this case, I received the PDF just a few days before the physical book arrived
at my door, so I could review both the physical copy and the PDF at the same
time.

The book is 160 pages, and if
you are familiar with any Cypher System
game (Numenera, The Strange, Gods of the Fall,
Cypher System Core), you will
recognize the formatting. It's very clean and easily readable, and has the same
sidebar references and definitions that other books in the line have. For those
that haven't seen a Cypher System
book before, it's very professionally laid out and attractive, but doesn't have
some of the stylistic flourish (parchment pages, background images, unique
style format based on setting, etc.) that some RPG lines have.

The artwork is attractive, and
much of it is brand new, highlighting the new genres, characters types, and
creatures introduced in the book. Overall, it is a very readable and very
attractive book that maintains the standards other books have set in the line.

Part 1: Characters

Part one is split
into two chapters, one for character Descriptors, and another for character Focus.
If you aren't familiar with Cypher Systems
games, these are two parts of the "sentence" that makes up your
character's base mechanics, i.e. you are a [Descriptor][Type] who [Focus]. If
you want a loose analogy, Type is somewhat analogous to character classes in
other games, and Descriptor and Focus are elements that modify that
"class" with background information and additional choices. Descriptors
include a section for how your character became involved in their first
adventure, while Focus includes a section for how you are connected to other
PCs in the group.

Many of both the Descriptors
and Foci could be used in a wide variety of games, but if you peak ahead to the
genres covered in this book, you can see why many of them were included. There
are a lot of interesting rules interactions that I don't recall from other Cypher System books (although I could
have easily have forgotten).

I like how some of the Descriptors
play with GM Intrusions (like Chaotic or Heroic) to achieve a consistent theme.
For example, Chaotic characters might get to reroll some results, but it will
cost them a GM intrusion, and Heroic characters tend to have very big effects
on intrusions, but those big effects tend to point them in the right direction
of even more epic events yet to come. Another interesting element in the Foci
section includes an ability that allows a PC to spend points from a pool AND XP
to find an artifact. It's a powerful ability, so the XP cost is warranted, but
I can't recall seeing that in other Foci up to this point.

Many of the Foci also include
"Level X" allies or servants, and it’s almost a deceptively simple
rule to introduce. Level doesn't matter when the PC rolls for their ally NPC,
so it only comes up to determine how much punishment they can take, most of the
time, and almost seems like a waste to assign them a level at all.

Both chapters are similar in structure,
although the Character Focus chapter includes a chart showing the recommended
genre to which the individual Foci might be grouped.

I don't have too much negative
to say about these chapters, other than that some of the "higher
concept" Foci seem stranger in less metaphysical games. I'm not talking
about Foci that represent hunting the supernatural in a game with nothing
supernatural--that's just a matter of not using that Foci in a genre that it
doesn't work in. I'm thinking more along the lines of Finds the Flaw in All
Things or Likes to Break Things, because while they seem straightforward, it’s
easier to see breaking people's will and items as the same concept in a Mythological
game more than in a real-world game. Not a major sticking point, just
conceptually a bit of a stretch.

Part 2: Fantastical
Genres

This section contains
chapters on Post Apocalyptic, Mythological, Fairy Tale, and Childhood Adventure
genre games. Each chapter has some discussion of the genre and what is common
to the genre, as well as some tools to help tell stories in that genre.

The Post Apocalyptic genre
introduces the Morlock and Roach Descriptors. The Mythological genre introduces
Hellborn and Giant Descriptors, the Fairy Tale section introduces the Changeling
Descriptor, and the Childhood Adventure section includes rules for applying
modifiers to characters to represent different ages, if players don't all want
to use the Young Descriptor in the first section.

Even if you are well acquainted
with these genres, each section does a good job of calling out influences (some
recent), defining the biggest tropes, and giving advice as to how often to
introduce some story elements, what to have happen very rarely for effect, and
what to completely avoid.

Straight out of the gate you
could probably randomly generate Childhood Adventure or Post Apocalyptic
adventures before you even did much in the way of defining a setting, if you
assumed that your Childhood Adventure world has the supernatural as an element,
and your Post Apocalyptic setting will look a bit like Fallout.

The weakest of all the genres
presented, to my taste, is probably the Mythological genre, just because there
is a little less advice on structure, what to include, and what not to include,
and more about using power shifts and "going big." Even then, it
offers some interesting tools, such as the new Descriptors.

Part 3: Gritty Genres

For my money, this is probably
the weakest part of the book. It’s still a fun read, and there is some
worthwhile information included, but the "genres" it tries to define
are way too broad to do much with the amount of space the alloted for them.

The individual chapters are
Historical, Crime and Espionage, and Hard Science Fiction. None of these have
specific Descriptors in them, although Crime and Espionage and Hard Science
Fiction have random tables of events that might occur in stories.

The Historical chapter has some
interesting sections on time periods that make for good campaigns, many of
which have been highlighted as much in the past. Despite having some good
suggestions, they don't give a lot of detail. There are also suggested name
lists that are very short, and I feel that space might have been better
utilized providing some references to more detailed treatments on the
historical period being referenced.

Crime and Espionage does a
slightly better job of defining some tropes and giving some structure and
practical campaign ideas, but the ideas feel very scattered, since the chapter
wanders from telling police procedural stories, Bond movies, Bourne movies, and
maybe playing criminals.

The best chapter in this
section for me was the Hard Science Fiction chapter. While it’s a very broad
topic, they do a much better job of identifying tropes and story structure, and
giving some rules suggestions to reinforce the feel of hard sci-fi stories. In
fact, the more narrative elements, like distances not being precisely measured,
helps, because instead of having people argue about exact distances ballistics
would be affected by gravity, for example, you are focusing on the fact that it
would, in fact, be reduced. Additionally, I love the modified version of the
Horror rules from the core rulebook applying to long space journeys to
represent the time, distance, and lack of support a crew has on trips.

This section was enjoyable to
read, and has a lot of good ideas, but overall, it just feels like practical
application at the table is lacking, compared to the previous section.

Part 4: Gamemaster
Section

This section is split
up into Creatures and NPCs. I always find these sections interesting in Cypher System books, because at their
base, you can essentially define an NPC or creature very quickly just by
assigning a level, which means in some ways the books have to "work for
it" to justify a full entry on a creature, providing roleplaying hooks,
tactics, tailored intrusions, and new ways to use the rules.

Some of the rules interactions
that set these creatures apart this time around include attacks that move
characters down their vitality tracts regardless of the number of points in
their pools, attacks that target multiple targets, and the special damage rules
for creatures like the hydra and how it plays out in the game.

There is a good thematic range
for the creatures, covering the genres detailed in the book well. Some of my
favorites are the Crucible (out of control bio computer), Erlking (exiled fey
creature trapped in a plant body), Cryptic Moth (creepy sapient super
moth), and the Shoe Thief (I'm not going to explain, just read it).

NPCs are less exciting, but
practical and useful for the genres mentioned. They don't have as many twists
on the rules as the creatures, but there is some solid advice as to where and
when to use them in the game and how they tie into the genres covered.

The Upside Down

The biggest downside is
that the genre chapter attempts to bite off huge chunks of content with defining
Historical and Crime and Espionage as genres, and getting a bit lost in
providing guidance to running those gigantic "meta-genres."

Police procedurals alone could
have taken up a chapter the size allocated to the Crime and Espionage sections,
and the chapter barely touches on the difference between a Bond style spy
adventure and a Bourne style adventure. For a game that has often mentioned
that discovery and exploration should be at least as important as combat, they
fail to give much in the way of guidelines for espionage stories where
gathering information and staying under the radar are way more important than
ever getting into a gun fight.

Eggo Waffles

The new Descriptors and Foci
are widely useful for a variety of games using the system, especially the core Cypher System and The Strange. Several of the genre chapters have enough tools to
just randomly generate some sessions if you aren't too worried about deep
stories. The book even touches on genres that have only been lightly treated in
The Strange, meaning that you
virtually have a few new recursions to work with from this book by slapping a
name on the world using the rules presented here.

Surviving the Demogorgon

Despite being a bit too
ambitious with some of the genres presented in the "gritty" chapter, Expanded Worlds is a solid toolbox of
material for the Cypher System RPG.
Not only is it going to be something beneficial to just about any Cypher System game, it's going to be a
solid resource for The Strange as
well, and to a lesser extent for both Numenera
and Gods of the Fall. It’s an
entertaining read, provides definite value for people playing or running the
game, and it puts new twists on the rules in several places. Recommended for
anyone even generally interested in Cypher
System games.

1 comment:

Honestly I'm not surprised the Mythological one genre is one of the weaker genres detailed in Expanded Worlds, they had plenty of room to show how Mythological games would work in Gods of the Fall. A lot of it would've been retreading the same ground.